Somehow, I’m not surprised. Old tech is trusty, reliable, simple. I’m pretty sure banks often run on old tech for the same reasons. It drives me nuts seeing computers in place of simple controls.
For instance, as an appliance tech I’ve been getting familiar with the latest common GE dishwasher design the past couple years and discovered the computer boards are a common failure point. There’s actually 2 of em–one main computer board doing most of the “heavy lifting”, and a separate computer board for the user interface that wires up to the main cpu. That board for the user interface is a very common failure point (though the other one likes to go bad sometimes too). They’re not even that expensive to buy, but they’re endlessly more complicated than a standard control panel with mechanical buttons, lights/LEDs and a small screen displaying the time, or something even simpler like a mechanical timer that you simply advance to the cycle you want to run.
The technology has existed for longer than many of us have even been alive–nobody’s building them anymore though…
I used to have to fix a lot of those magic boxes. They are often extremely simple and built with 30 year old technology.
Somehow, I’m not surprised. Old tech is trusty, reliable, simple. I’m pretty sure banks often run on old tech for the same reasons. It drives me nuts seeing computers in place of simple controls.
For instance, as an appliance tech I’ve been getting familiar with the latest common GE dishwasher design the past couple years and discovered the computer boards are a common failure point. There’s actually 2 of em–one main computer board doing most of the “heavy lifting”, and a separate computer board for the user interface that wires up to the main cpu. That board for the user interface is a very common failure point (though the other one likes to go bad sometimes too). They’re not even that expensive to buy, but they’re endlessly more complicated than a standard control panel with mechanical buttons, lights/LEDs and a small screen displaying the time, or something even simpler like a mechanical timer that you simply advance to the cycle you want to run.
The technology has existed for longer than many of us have even been alive–nobody’s building them anymore though…
It’s always interesting to find a control system that’s actually Windows 98 or 2000 running on it.